Boundaries Breached
by Golumfryingeggs
Summary: Eventually the villains will push their luck and step over the line. When that happens the inevitable hand must be played. Sequel to To fight for a Bad Guy. Rating will change.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: There we go as I promised here is the first chapter to the sequel for TFFABG. Hopefully you guys enjoy this story as much as you did the last! Crises Project and myself have tried our whole best to write and edit up to your expectations! I hope we did and thanks for coming back for a second run!

Enjoy till yer belly bursts!

* * *

**Wrath of the Gods**

_As the sun settled in the distance and the skies were painted with the colors of fire, he stared._

_She stood barefoot in a small but pretty garden, surrounded by white roses, daisies and other flowers that were colorful which he did not recognise._

_Her warm blue eyes sparkled against the contrast of the orange sky. It melted in with her pale soft skin as the breeze lightly brushed her blonde hair and white dress which rippled and whispered like the leaves of a willow tree. The world stood still and he stared._

_He found himself compelled to move forwards, to touch, to smell and feel. To experience it all in one movement, one single movement that would define him._

_The light died further, darkening and he stepped forwards._

_She was as soft as she looked, she smelled of the white roses in her hand and his touch was cold against her... almost as brittle as ice... her hand could and would shatter if he pressed too tightly._

_He felt the slight swell in her stomach, the soft hum of a tiny heart beating against his hand. He smiled and moved his hands up and settled them on her pale soft neck. He could see the sun setting in her blue eyes, watching him, staring through him, trying to decipher him without asking. He smiled at her, so soft, so brittle, so... breakable..._

_And as the sun disappeared behind the horizon, he snapped her neck backwards and watched her crumple to the soft grass._

Joker's eyes opened slowly. The dreariness of sleep almost lulled him back to slumber, but he pushed those feelings away and instead hoisted himself up. It had never been easy to move around with a straight jacket, but after a few years in and out of an asylum... it had become almost second nature.

He rolled over onto his shoulder and with some shuffling, finally got himself into a sitting position.

That was the third time he'd had that dream in less than a week. It didn't as much disturb him as annoy him. His dreams were usually filled with destruction and screams and sometimes he had to run for his life.

Which made them fun!

But this one was boring, it was dull and even the death at the end left him unsatisfied and empty.

The lightning flashed in the skies as the rain poured. Thunder rolled, growling in a god-like deep voice of the heavens. Slowly he stood and came to stand by the window, starring up at the skies and wondered if the gods were as upset about the dream as he was.

They certainly seemed to be angry.

He hated the dream for what it did to him, for what it made him feel... something he hadn't understood for a while, but now he knew and it angered him. Angered him enough to try and destroy the dream.

He'd had no nightmares about their 'incident' in the year after their ordeal and quite frankly he didn't care. He was alive and he could wreak as much havoc as he wanted, so he was as happy as could be.

Thunder clapped.

But, this dream, it made him feel... regret. A bitter regret that lingered in his mouth, something he was as alien to as a clown in a pencil factory.

He could barely grasp the concept.

And it angered him, so much so that he wanted and needed to destroy and hurt the people, to make it stop, to force new dreams into his subconscious. Perhaps that was the answer.

He stared up at the skies and smiled.

"Perhaps..." he whispered, "the only answer..." and laughed as the gods roared with him into the night.

Arkham stood quietly against the pounding rain and wind. The doctors were still working tirelessly through the night. Their patience, willpower and sanity tested hour upon hour. Those few who find the ability to stand against the onslaught of the inmates became respected and stayed for years and years.

They turn into living legends.

And Rebbecca White was one of those few. They had a nickname for her: Athena, a defender and peacemaker, one who stands vigilant against any felt that it was rather silly, but did see the sentiment behind it and thus did not shoot anyone down who called her this.

The small pale room held a table and two chairs, one occupied by Athena herself. Her white hair was bright in the sharp flickering florescent lights. The walls were once white, but now a faded grey and the windows were barred and locked, keeping out the pounding rain and wind.

She sat in the small room, her delicate silver wristwatch ticking steadily past seven and with an irritable huff she tapped her clipboard. Twenty years she had been working at this asylum and never once had she tolerated a late patient. Her tired eyes flicked to her watch; it had just turned 7:02. Two minutes or not, they were still late and she had a lot of work to get done tonight.

Feeling restless she reopened the file and scanned through it once more in the flickering lights.

_Subject has not spoken at all about the incident..._

Athena sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

It was very common for patients to avoid the painful truth through stubborn silence. If the problem frightened or bothered them too much, they would simply deflect it or bury the memories through sheer mental will power.

But it was a very strange attribute to associate with _this_ particularly patient though.

_Yet has become somewhat introverted and shows increased violence which suggests suppressed emotion._

Wonderful, she thought sarcastically, 'Thank you, Annie, for leaving me the one that is going to try and tear my arm off.'

He only ever shows any form of interest when the conversation steers towards Mr. Freeze, at which he becomes bitter and violent,blaming the city for not doing a better job in reviving the comatose patient.

Rebbecca had heard of this. That he had become quite attached to the super villain, though the reason why was a mystery and perhaps even the root of the problem. But if the man didn't want to talk it could be next to impossible to figure out how to fix it.

She stared quietly at the empty chair across from her, feeling even wearier than she had ever felt in her life.

At age 52, Rebbecca felt it might be a good idea to retire. Most of her friends and coworkers were all gone, dead, or insane. Some were even her patients. This asylum had a way to tear you apart with hidden claws and shadowed teeth and leave you bleeding on the floor.

Some called it a place of healing.

Others called it the belly of Hades.

And that's why they needed gods like Athena and Zeus to fight against the monsters. After twenty years of hell and damnation she had been here the longest of all her peers and fellow doctors and orderlies, but she took no pride in this. Too many, far too many people have died and are dying because of this place.

She needed to quit while she was ahead... in every sense of the word.

The door slid open and groaned on its rusty hinges. The image of a growling beast flickered through her head in broken images, but she quickly suppressed the thought. It was no good to be as paranoid as your patients.

The sterile room let in a thin man, a mass of black hair tumbled around a gaunt face and sharp eyes. He stared at Rebbecca not with fear, relief, or even anger as with most of her patients, but with a quiet curiosity. A curiosity she had come to associate with him.

The two orderlies set him down in the chair across from her, his hands and feet were quickly, perhaps roughly, shackled to the armrests and floor.

She waited for the two gorillas to leave and as the door slammed shut, she felt another image flicker. The jaws of a dragon snapping shut, keeping its prey captive in its burning mouth as it inhaled to unleash its fiery fury.

Rebbecca shook her head.

"Good evening Edward," she said with a comforting smile at the man, who kept his gaze distant, but intrigued. "How are you feeling today?"

He didn't answer.

"Still quiet?" her eyes quickly scanned the file in front of her.

"I can understand your... reaction... if you were an ordinary man, Edward," she tried again, "but you are by far one of the most intelligent people I have met." She leaned back against the uncomfortable plastic chair, "you were wronged, abused, hurt and forced in a situation that was completely beyond your control."

He stared dead ahead, his body still, but his eyes sharp.

"I understand if you feel betrayed by Arkham for placing you in that position in the first place, we were suppose to protect you, keep you safe and we couldn't."

He blinked at her, but still said no word.

Thunder rolled.

Rebbecca flipped through the file, "The others are doing well. Penguin, though still bitter has shown immense progress in the past few months," she suppressed a sigh when the man still didn't so much as huff. "Joker has been... rather positive about it all... surprisingly enough."

Still nothing.

Rebbecca went for broke, "do you want to talk about Victor?"

His eyes narrowed.

"I am guessing that you two perhaps shared something during the incident." She pressed on; any reaction was good at this point, "comradeship, comfort, perhaps you shared problems?"

The silence that followed was thick enough to cut with a knife and after a long glare, Edward, slowly, almost mechanically closed his eyes and sighed. After months of working with him, this was practically a breakthrough.

She waited a moment to see if he was going to speak.

The seconds ticked on and if he wasn't sitting so rigidly she could have sworn he had fallen asleep.

"I think-"

"_Bred in cruelty_

_through death and mistake_

_held in black heart and_

_fed through hate_

_has never been seen, heard or felt_

_yet through the days and even ages_

_it has always been held_."

The Riddler opened his eyes.

Rebbecca felt her mouth turn weren't sharp or curious anymore… they were passionate, alive, awake, as if the spirit had been resurrected.

"A riddle I presume?" she asked in a thick voice.

He waited.

She suppressed a sigh and looked up to the ceiling. The words mingled in her head quickly and with a small frown she said.

"A grudge?"

The tiniest of smiles spread on his thin lips in response. "Got it in one," he rasped and then the dragon unleashed his fury.

She never had time to scream.

The explosion rocked the very foundations of the asylum, knocking down the wall in a blaze of white and yellow.

Rubble fell around the small room, but he had yet to move. Slowly, almost deliberately he unlocked the chains with a small hidden key. He stood and carefully stepped over the quiet body of the doctor.

"And I still have one with this city," he said as he stepped through the hole and into the rain,the alarm ringing in through the storm.

* * *

Yayayayayayayaya!

Dance till you drop cause here we go again! :D!

insanely yours

gollumfryingeggs


	2. Chapter 2

Wow this was a long wait for you guys, real sorry :(, life's been hectic, but all is okay now and that means that the next few chapters will be on line a little faster this time around :)

Thanks for reading guys and hope you enjoy!

Thank you Crises Project for Beta'ing ^_^

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**Gates of Hell**

_And even as he, who, with distressful breath,_

_Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,_

_Turns to the water perilous and gazes-_

Penguin looked up. He could hear the commotion outside, people screaming, alarms ringing and hell breaking loose.

_Jail break_, he thought with a small sigh. Even after all the months he'd been gone, things are still the same here. At this point in time it was an absolute godsend. He flipped the cover close and, holding his place with one finger, he checked the title once more.

_The Divine Comedy._

The book had been flippantly handed to him by one of his doctors a day or so ago, for what purpose was beyond him. He'd never been a great reader, but recently he'd found comfort in books. They were constant and unchanging; weeks from now he could come back and reread the passages and they would be exactly the same. Word for word, quote for quote, forever fixed. A strange comfort he'd found in a book of all places.

Perhaps that's why the good doctor had given it to him. It was the stability that drew him towards them. Not the stories.

The book was written in poetry form - it was strange and hard to read, but he felt he was getting the hang of it. Most of the underlined meanings were lost to him, but the words were the same, the ever feeling of constant and reliability that his life needed at this point.

_"Get Leonard, we need a medical doctor!"_

He stopped and listened.

_"You two! Check on the other inmates!"_

_No need to come here_, he thought with a smirk.

_"For god's sake, someone call the fire brigade!"_

The screams and panic leaked off him like water off a duck's back. Same old Arkham. He shook his head opened up the book once more and continued to read the old faded pages by the flickering yellow light in his room. It was still a good few hours before lights out.

_So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,_

_Turn itself back to re-behold the pass_

_Which never yet a living person left._

The last words struck something. It reeled back time to a place where darkness had claimed him, where happiness had been a sick illusion and where he'd nearly lost his mind. There were days when he'd wondered if he were truly alive. The pressing world had become something of a strange dream land. He breathed, ate and spoke, but the nightmares still came, the fear still lingered and the dark shapes of his mind took form.

He stared at the words.

_Which never yet a living person left._

At night his terrors took form, during the day the shadows followed him and from everywhere he could hear screaming; his own screams that echoed and clapped in his mind. Some nights he knew they would come for him, others he would reach out and hope to find his comrades.

The book snapped shut. He closed his eyes trying to calm his breathing.

He was alive, but only because he hadn't escaped yet.

* * *

The rain had slowed somewhat, but a soft drizzle of mist still nipped at exposed skin.

Gordon stared bitterly at the large hole. Gaping like an open wound, the water seeping in and infecting it. He wrinkled his nose; infecting wouldn't be the correct term. Arkham was already infected, diseased and beyond help.

If anything the rain should cleanse it, heal it and breathe life back in to it. But even the purist of water would never salvage this hell.

The shadows moved.

"We lost his trail," Gordon said without turning around, "he had obviously been planning this for some time." He then turned and just beyond the light he could make out the pointed ears of his partner and almost friend.

The Batman moved a few steps closer.

"Doctor?"

"Dead," he hated sounding so neutral about things like this, but it was just easier in his job to keep his emotions distant, "she was rushed to hospital, but died on the way."

A bitter silence followed.

"Where's the riddle?" the grave voice said after another moment of silence.

Gordon leaned against the shattered wall, took out a small packet and shook out a cigarette.

"That's just it," he said, his face illuminated by the match for a split second before it fizzed out, "there isn't one."

He took a long drag from the nicotine cylinder and felt some of the tension ease away for a blissful moment.

He didn't have to see his face to know that the vigilante was confused. Riddler always left riddles, it was his calling card - hell, it was his bloody name. Dr. Rebecca White, had once discussed the possibility that he has an OCD about it, completely unable to leave the scene of a crime without leaving a clue.

It was supposedly his Achilles Heel.

And now he'd stopped. No calling card meant no clue as to what the villain might be planning and that placed them in a very awkward situation.

This just shot the good doctor's theory right to shit. In another circumstance he would have contacted her and discussed the different possible reasons for his behaviour. Tonight all he had was her life's work, filed neatly into the cabinets in her office.

It'll have to do.

"I'll put out some feelers," Batman said gravely, shaking him from his thoughts, "and contact you if I find anything."

Gordon nodded. "Fair enough," he blew out a puff of smoke, his thoughts running a mile a minute. "Do you think the 'situation' a few months ago might be the reason for his actions?"

Silence.

The Commissioner looked to the shadows and was slightly surprised to find the man still there. That was new. He usually left by this point with some grand flare of cape and cowl. He raised an eyebrow, but did not comment further on the man's presence.

"Could be," Batman said, "but let's hope not. If that is the problem we might have to watch Joker and Penguin as well."

"Maybe we should," he said, staring up to the dreary skies, "just to be on the safe side."

No answer. This time he didn't look, the sudden sense of emptiness was proof enough the man was gone. He finished his cigarette and snuffed it out on his cheap and soggy packet. The rain was picking up again, drenching the city and in this shower he needed to find a new lead.

* * *

Right,... um after such a long wait... you get a very short chapter...err... sorry?

Now working? Okay then *pus helmet on*, you may proceed to hit me over the head with those very big clubs and steel crowbars you brought along.

Just not the face!

yours insanely

gollumfryingeggs


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